I Put a Pete Jackson gear Drive in my 440 Dodge when I built it. Just like the way it sounds. I have a few bucks in the motor. Roller cam, decent rods, Crank, Al heads.(don't want bad things to happen with valvetrain!
I drive the car on the highway alot. 3:23 rearend. This guy I met told me the gear drive won't hold up and is not designed for constant cruising. Is this true and should I cange to a chain? Thanks

I had always been told that with a chain drive, the stretch in the chain helps absorb some of the shock when a cylinder fires, a gear drive however would transmit that shock straight to the cam and valve train.

In the late sixties and early seventies, I ran a Milodon gear drive on big (for that time) hydraulic cams. It worked well on a couple different engines. Then I switched to a solid roller, with only a .540 lift, in a new build. Wore the valve springs out in about 25 to 30 passes. I thought that I might have gotten a bad set of roller springs, so I put a new set in. Same senario! Bought new springs an a Rollmaster timing set and it solved my problem. It seems that a gear drive will transfer harmonics to the valve train unless there is something to dampen them like a blower belt or maybe hydraulic lifters. I now run a belt drive set up in my big engine, but if I build a back-up, it will more than likely have a Rollmaster chain.

I have had various problems with the valvetrain and have to fiddle with it. I thought it was just the roller set-up. Rocker arm adj nuts for one. I sure would miss the whine of the gear drive at 70MPH.

What about those Jesel timing belt setups? I know they are ment for oval racing so perhaps have a fairly frequent belt replacement requirement apparently they are quite dependable. Anyone have experience with them as I'm looking at trying them out?

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